


The London Job

by ofsevenseas



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-19
Updated: 2011-01-19
Packaged: 2017-10-14 21:52:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/153830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ofsevenseas/pseuds/ofsevenseas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Irene Adler was seventeen, she ran away from home. (Blink and you'll miss the mystery crossover. :D)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The London Job

**Author's Note:**

> Written for leupagus' [Mary Sue Promptfest](http://leupagus.livejournal.com/48870.html).

When Irene Adler was seventeen, she ran away from home. It wasn't difficult: the computer system on base was 4 years behind processing and all she'd had to do was click delete on a few crucial forms - wrangling classified files for the US military paid well in more ways than monetarily.

Irene had great charm, sure, and everyone on base was going to miss her impersonations, but she was a chameleon first, and for that she had to have air.

With a canvas backpack in hand, Irene charmed her way across Germany, Belgium and then France with a heartrending tale of retracing her grandmother's never-completed attempt to reach neutral Sweden. In Belgium she learned to swear like a Marseillais sailor, in Paris she made her way into the bed of a brilliant contralto - more importantly, her wardrobe - and she landed in England as an expat and aspiring actress.

For a while she was swayed by the RADA, the Palladian facade of Burlington House so solid and glamourous ( _so full of history_ ) standing in front of her. She had pictured herself another Vivien Leigh, with the world holding its breath on the edge of her beauty. Humming under her breath, already flicking through the scripts in her head (Shakespeare or Ibsen or perhaps something closer to home - Pinter?), she had bumped into a nondescript man and, by sheer force of habit, had absconded with his wallet.

Half an hour later she was sitting at a cafe, aghast at her own carelessness, looking at the monogrammed leather, proclaiming it to be the possession of a very ornate WH. She sketched aliases, escape plans, counterfeiters she could rely on for a few choice tidbits about the National Gallery’s new exhibit.

Plans made, she had gotten up to buy a one-way ticket for Turkey on the first flight out.

Just outside the door, she spilled hot tea all over the arm of a crinkle-eyed, smiling man, who held his hand out, and said gently, “I believe you have something of mine?”

For a moment, she trembled, but her gut ( _instinct is never wrong_ ) told her to trust him, to take the leap, and so Irene Adler thrust her hand out at the just the right angle, and said, “My name is Charlotte Prentice, and I stole your wallet.”


End file.
